Using “The Secret” to Lose Weight (repost)

(I wrote this many years ago to briefly explain what my book Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body is about. Hence the dated language. However, I need to repost this here on the WordPress site for various reasons. So, enjoy this blast from the past!)

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WILL BE ATTENDING A SHAPE SHIFTING GROUP: We’ll be using two books, Shape Shifting—reclaiming YOUR perfect body AND the Shape Shifters Daily Diary. Although Shape Shifting was originally written as a weight balancing method, the method is similar enough to use for any form of self-care. Shape Shifting Groups do not focus only on weight/body issues. You can use your Diary and group time to work on any goals you wish to cook on a front burner.

The movie and book entitled The Secret are doing everyone a huge favor. They are finally bringing what’s known as the Law of Attraction to the mainstream. Even Oprah featured them on her show, twice in a month! One woman in the crowd asked how she can use the “secret” (which is not really a secret, it’s just been ignored) to lose weight. Hopefully, she finds this article because I used it to lose 50 pounds, and counting!

My discovery of this process–I call it Shape Shifting–began a few years ago. I was at my highest weight ever and at my wit’s end. By that time I’d been to countless doctors, weight loss programs, gyms, bookstores (You should see the weight loss library I’ve accumulated. You too?), counted calories and carbs, used starch blockers, potato powder, and ate for my type. I bought supplements, drank diet tea, used laxatives, diuretics–pretty much everything short of bulimia and anorexia.

In the meantime, I researched mind/body medicine, Reiki, holistic medicine, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, meditation, etc. I worked as an editor on a pretty well known alternative medicine encyclopedia and got to play with cutting edge technologies and knowledge. I even entered a program to get a degree in metaphysics. I gathered knowledge about how the body and mind work together. Even with this focused research, I found that the amount of information available on the specific subject of holistic weight loss was miniscule.

What I did find was that we actually create illness and health with our minds with the Law of Attraction. Our thoughts are just as real as the words in front of your face, and with them we create our own reality. We create our lives. We create our bodies. What we think is what we become. How we live now creates our future. There are dozens of different ways to express that same thought, and you’ve probably read them all if you’ve done any spiritual exploration of your own. And for some reason, I created an extra 75 pounds to lug around on my relatively small frame. So why did I create a fat body? And why can others eat whatever they want and never gain a pound?

The Preliminaries
I want you to play a little game with me. Pretend you’re a blank slate. You have an androgynous, adult human body with absolutely nothing written in your memory. You know nothing about life on Earth as a gendered human being. You’ve been dropped into modern day society, and you have to assimilate FAST! What do you take in first?

Let’s say that you hear the phrase, “You can’t do anything right!” You register it as rule #1 and proceed accordingly. Then you hear the message, “Don’t touch your body or show it to anyone! That’s very, very bad!” which then becomes rule #2. Then you’re told that your body needs to look a very specific way in order to be acceptable–rule #3.

You want to be acceptable, because that seems to be pretty important to these people you’re suddenly surrounded by. But since rule #1 says that you can’t do anything right, there is no way to accomplish this, or anything else, correctly. In addition, rule #2 tells you that your body is shameful, so you’re not quite sure if it’s okay to pay attention to what it looks like. No one else seems to be able to tell you, so you just bounce around like a pinball, trying to figure out how to follow all of the rules, especially since there are still more new rules pouring in constantly, overloading your circuits.

Tell me how you will ever achieve what you’ve been told is “right,” if your first rule of functioning is that you can’t do so?

Mainstream Messages
Obesity in this country is being called an epidemic and it’s talked about so much that no one really even listens anymore. It’s always the same thing–we eat junk and sit on our butts. Duh.

Studies have shown that in the past few decades, Americans have become heavier and heavier. It’s an alarming trend that the medical world is studying; yet they haven’t come up with any solid answers as to why this is happening. They blame fast food, lack of exercise, etc., but they don’t know why changing diet and exercise doesn’t work for everyone and why it has to be so hard!

In these same past few decades, the pressure has been extraordinarily strong from external sources to look a certain way, much more so than in the days before television and other mass communication media.

I believe there’s a connection between the beginning of media pressure to be ultra-thin and this current “epidemic.” We’re constantly told that we’re too fat (even if we’re not!), and if we believe this, we become even fatter, through the Law of Attraction.

There have always been differing styles and body shapes in vogue, but past generations weren’t inundated in their daily lives with images of gaunt models to hold themselves up to. The sheer volume of messages that we receive is overwhelmingly greater than ever before in our history. The energetic power of that message is more than we can metabolize.

All of these things silently and gradually chip away at your self-esteem and personal strength. If you only feel physically valuable if you look a certain way, but you don’t feel strong enough or worthy of looking that way, then you’ll never shift into that shape because you feel you don’t deserve to. Or if you feel vulnerable looking that certain way, you’ll do whatever it takes to look otherwise, even sabotage your body by shifting into a shape that you hate. But at least you feel safe. Whew! What a mind twist!

We hang on to these lies because if we strip away all of the reasons that we don’t feel good about ourselves, we have to replace them with something. We’re left exposed and empty unless we replace these things with new information. If we don’t know what to replace them with, we don’t remove them in the first place.

Remember that just because one person says something is true for you, it’s not necessarily so. Einstein failed math as a child. But perhaps it was just too basic for him. Maybe when the teacher said, “Two plus two equals four,” little Al was thinking, “Not necessarily.” What typical teacher wouldn’t mark that response as incorrect?

Law of Attraction
Now, before we move into how the Law of Attraction can be used to reverse all of these negative influences–influences that actually caused our bodies to look the way they do through the Law of Attraction–it’s important to explain that it’s not just a matter of “positive thinking.” It’s essential that, in addition to thinking positive, we must FEEL positive and then begin to ACT positive. Without these two key ingredients, the recipe fails, but it begins with our thoughts.

Life is created by our thoughts. Thought is totally original–even if your thoughts are a take-off on someone else’s ideas, they are coming through the filter of your personality and so therefore cannot be exactly alike.

Thought is also measurable energy waves. In a process called biofeedback, thoughts have been shown to physically change the body’s energy field, to change its temperature, and to relieve pain. Thought is. Thought has substance. Thought hardens our energy field. Yin plays against yang to create solidity. Thought is the first tool in shape shifting.

When you think, you send energy waves into your energy field, like ripples on water. If your thoughts remain the same–when you focus those thoughts–the wavelengths remain the same. The vibration remains the same. The energy around and within you hardens into the form that those vibrations create. Your shape is shifted in whatever direction your thoughts take it.

The vibrations you send out if you say, “I’m a disgusting pig” are rippling and hardening your energy. And if you think this sort of thing about yourself ALL THE TIME, the energy just follows directions. Energy is energy and energy itself is neutral. It has no feelings, no judgments, no good, no bad. It’s waves and empty space. It just is and it is every thing. If you insist that you’re a disgusting pig, that’s fine with the energy. That’s the shape it shifts you into.

As Neale Donald Walsch says in Conversations With God, Book 1, “Like energy attracts like energy–forming (to use simple words) ‘clumps’ of energy of like kind. When enough similar ‘clumps’ criss-cross each other–run into each other–they ‘stick to’ each other (to use another simple term). It takes an incomprehensibly huge amount of similar energy ‘sticking together,’ thusly, to form matter. But matter will form out of pure energy. In fact, that is the only way it can form. Once energy becomes matter, it remains matter for a very long time–unless its construction is disrupted by an opposing, or dissimilar, form of energy. This dissimilar energy, acting upon matter, actually dismembers the matter, releasing the raw energy of which it was composed.”

Attracting something new
With this in mind, how can you begin to dissemble and recreate the shape you want to shift? What if you started thinking, “I have a beautiful body,” instead? Aside from your first reaction, which would probably contain a word represented by the initials “B.S.,” you could actually begin to transform the energy into that beautiful body. However, you need to make this your predominant thought so it can work on the energy, and that can be very difficult at first. You need to become immersed in your new thoughts.

You must become immersed because if you only think your new, healthy thoughts some of the time, your thoughts are scattered. If your thoughts are scattered, nothing really comes of good thoughts because the vibes are all over the place and they don’t have time to harden. Majority rules though. Whichever thought has the most concentration wins. If it’s not over half though, or there are several conflicting thoughts, you’ll lean more toward one way than the other–whichever thought gets the most energetic support–and unfortunately that’s usually self-loathing thoughts.

In the lives that we create, we experience–both individually and collectively–an incredible array of colors and flavors, tastes and smells, pains and passions, losses and triumphs. Not a single life is the same, just like the individuality a snowflake. Every moment of every day changes our life and shifts it toward this shape or that.

Our reality is just a game. Where else can we play cops and robbers, spy vs. spy, cowboys and Indians? Where else can we be cast in the role of butcher, baker or candlestick maker? How else could we know what it’s like to be Romeo and Juliet, Rogers and Hammerstein, or Sigfried and Roy?

We chose our characters and our scenarios. We go through life gathering tools, potions, and weapons. We battle giant shadows and save princesses. We collect hit points and gain strength for the next level. We make it happen. We make our characters grow, not the other player’s.

Your thought process is what steers your life. You make decisions that take you in one direction and other decisions you might have made would have taken you in others–all of which would make tomorrow a completely different path and years down the road a totally different future.

We think about the way we are “supposed to look” and the way we actually do look. We think certain things about certain foods. We think those things because they are what our blank slates have been taught. If we lived in other parts of the world, we’d be taught differently and we’d then think differently.

Part of the problem is buying into the “supposed to look” scenario to begin with. We simply cannot look like another person. Period. Even identical twins aren’t 100% identical. So in our striving to look like a model, when our body knows better what it is really supposed to look like, we create conflict in the shape shifting process. We hate our body for rebelling against what we’re trying to force it to do.

Choosing a realistic goal
If you can’t seem to make your body look a certain way, no matter how hard you try, then chances are real good that your body isn’t supposed to look that way. You blame it on bad diet and not enough exercise, but that is only a part of it, and a small one at that.

Look at all the different, healthy body shapes there are. Tall, thin, stocky, muscular, willowy, and on and on. They are healthy and normal. Please note, then, that the stereotypical model figure is only one of many. Some people naturally look like that. They don’t have to try, they just do. Just like I don’t have to try to look short and curvy. I just am, no matter how much I weigh.

But somehow the people with that body shape have managed to get treated better and are practically revered, so therefore many of us want to shift into that shape. Who doesn’t want to be treated better for doing absolutely nothing? However, if your body is genetically designed to be something else, even when it’s at it healthiest, then I can guarantee that you will never ever ever ever ever ever EVER–no matter how much you diet or how much surgery you get–never look like that body shape.

You can’t change that.

So if you have one of those shapes that doesn’t fit into that one desired mold, then you’re going to have to just accept it and start to think of your shape as just as good as the desired norm–because there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.

Now, this isn’t just a self-esteem issue. It’s a creative issue. By thinking of yourself as having an imperfect body, then that’s what you are creating whether you are aware of it or not.

If your body is genetically supposed to look like shape “A,” then your body knows that and is trying to maintain that shape. But then you come along with thoughts and demands for it to look like shape “B.” And unless you have the power of a Master, it ain’t happenin.’ So what you’re actually getting is a weird morph of AB. That’s why you are struggling to reach that goal, because your body doesn’t know what to do with the energy you’re pushing on it, so it just places it in the most pleasing manner that it can. You keep piling more of it on, so it starts running out of places for the energy to go. Gradually it looks less pleasing. Not less pleasing as in “less like a model’s figure,” but less than pleasing for your body type.

Think of it this way: could you make your body look like one of the other, “undesired” shapes? Could you go from tall to short? No? Then why on Earth would you think you could change it into that model shape when your skeleton and muscles aren’t built like that?

Take a look at your bone structure and the healthiest, most fit people in your family. See whose body shape you most resemble. That’s your goal–not some swimsuit model.

For example, I’m about 5’2″ (5’3″ on a tall day). I have a sort of muscular build. My thighs are naturally heavy and powerful looking. I have great legs when they’re toned. I have wide hips, an hourglass figure and a larger than average bust. That’s what I look like whether I’m fat or thin, there’s just more or less of me either way. So when I make the effort–through changes to a healthier mindset, diet, and more activity to look my best–I’m still not ever going to look like a supermodel. I will not suddenly grow taller and narrower. However, I can still have a pretty cute little package. So that’s the goal I need to keep in mind for myself. A cute little package. I can do that!

Finding your perfection
Here comes that obnoxious metaphysical leap of faith you keep hearing that you have to make. In order to attain “perfection,” you have to know that you’re “perfect” already. But until you do think of yourself as perfect you will never be perfect. It’s the most annoying paradox known to mankind, but it’s true. Creativity is in the NOW moment. In order for me to have a “cute little package,” I have to know that I already am one, even if others disagree.

Unfortunately, many people think they have the right to decide what we should look like, what would be “perfect” for us. My perfect body is completely different from what someone else thinks it should be. It’s my body, so I get to choose. And I choose what is healthiest and possible for me! I will never look like a model, because it’s just not in my DNA, and I’m okay with that.

Break it down: grab the perfect image that you just discovered from a family member, the one that your body has a chance of actually attaining. Think of yourself as looking like that. Even with a lot of weight on you, you can at least imagine that, because it’s believable to you that you can get there. You can easily see your face on that body.

Keep thinking of yourself like that, being that in your mind’s eye, and you’ll gradually begin to look like that. You’ll find that you “magically” start eating better. You’ll start thinking twice about eating sugar. You’ll start parking a little further away than you have to, or noticing that your butt is sore from sitting too much so you get up and move around more.

Keep it up!
It’s important to be on vigilant guard against slipping into old thinking habits. The Law of Attraction is not fair or unfair. It doesn’t care one way or the other, which way we choose to be. Energy itself is neutral. It has no feelings, no judgments, no good, no bad. It’s waves and empty space. It just is and it is every thing. Why then would we be stuck with something that really is so unfair unless we chose to be?

It’s hard to love your body when it seems to have betrayed you by getting fat. We look at our gut and think, “Yech!” We look in the mirror and sent hate vibes at our flabby selves. But ironically, that’s what we’ve been taught that love is! It’s all heartache and betrayal. You even buy your body chocolates when you want it to feel better. So you think you are loving your body, albeit in a weird kind of way.

The “Secret” isn’t magic though, any more than any other mystery of life is. You can’t just think and expect it to change–at least not quickly! That’s where many people get confused when it comes to metaphysical thought. They misunderstand and think that all they have to do is daydream and their dreams will come true, because that’s what they think is promised. Thought creates reality and we live in a reality where you pretty much have to eat less junk and exercise more. So thoughts about a healthy body will lead you to situations that help you to become so–they don’t do the work for you. They begin the process–thought, word and action.

People who have trouble gaining health aren’t following through on their thoughts with action. Their thoughts toward a more perfect body will magnetize them into healthier situations, like a more active job or perhaps a new restaurant with healthier foods, or a bargain on a gym membership. If they don’t take those opportunities, then it takes much longer for the energetic shift to happen, because the message they’re sending is “I want to be thin but I’m not willing to make any effort to get there.”

The argument I’ve heard from people is “What good is this positive thinking nonsense if I still have to work for what I want?” Well, you’re thinking anyway, only your thoughts aren’t positive! You’re doing negative thinking, which lead to negative words, feelings and actions! You’re working even harder than you have to if you would just start out by switching your thoughts!

Your thoughts are creating your life already, whether you know it or not. You might as well learn how to think healthier and get great results, instead of bashing yourself, working harder than you need to, and getting either no results or worse.

Read more in Lisa Bonnice’s book Shape Shifting–reclaiming your perfect body (which includes a foreword by Neale Donald Walsch, best-selling author of the Conversations with God series) at http://www.shapeshiftingonline.com